The ZX-Calculus is a graphical language for diagrammatic reasoning in quantum
mechanics and quantum information theory. It comes equipped with an equational
presentation. We focus here on a very important property of the language:
completeness, which roughly ensures the equational theory captures all of
quantum mechanics. We first improve on the known-to-be-complete presentation
for the so-called Clifford fragment of the language - a restriction that is not
universal - by adding some axioms. Thanks to a system of back-and-forth
translation between the ZX-Calculus and a third-party complete graphical
language, we prove that the provided axiomatisation is complete for the first
approximately universal fragment of the language, namely Clifford+T.
We then prove that the expressive power of this presentation, though aimed at
achieving completeness for the aforementioned restriction, extends beyond
Clifford+T, to a class of diagrams that we call linear with Clifford+T
constants. We use another version of the third-party language - and an adapted
system of back-and-forth translation - to complete the language for the
ZX-Calculus as a whole, that is, with no restriction. We briefly discuss the
added axioms, and finally, we provide a complete axiomatisation for an altered
version of the language which involves an additional generator, making the
presentation simpler.
Volume: Volume 16, Issue 2
Published on: June 4, 2020
Given two labelled Markov decision processes (MDPs), the trace-refinement
problem asks whether for all strategies of the first MDP there exists a
strategy of the second MDP such that the induced labelled Markov chains are
trace-equivalent. We show that this problem is decidable in polynomial time if
the second MDP is a Markov chain. The algorithm is based on new results on a
particular notion of bisimulation between distributions over the states.
However, we show that the general trace-refinement problem is undecidable, even
if the first MDP is a Markov chain. Decidability of those problems was stated
as open in 2008. We further study the decidability and complexity of the
trace-refinement problem provided that the strategies are restricted to be
memoryless.
Volume: Volume 16, Issue 2
Published on: June 3, 2020
We present a number of contributions to bridging the gap between supervisory
control theory and coordination of services in order to explore the frontiers
between coordination and control systems. Firstly, we modify the classical
synthesis algorithm from supervisory control theory for obtaining the so-called
most permissive controller in order to synthesise orchestrations and
choreographies of service contracts formalised as contract automata. The key
ingredient to make this possible is a novel notion of controllability. Then, we
present an abstract parametric synthesis algorithm and show that it generalises
the classical synthesis as well as the orchestration and choreography
syntheses. Finally, through the novel abstract synthesis, we show that the
concrete syntheses are in a refinement order. A running example from the
service domain illustrates our contributions.
Volume: Volume 16, Issue 2
Published on: June 3, 2020
$B$-terms are built from the $B$ combinator alone defined by $B\equiv\lambda
fgx. f(g~x)$, which is well known as a function composition operator. This
paper investigates an interesting property of $B$-terms, that is, whether
repetitive right applications of a $B$-term cycles or not. We discuss
conditions for $B$-terms to have and not to have the property through a sound
and complete equational axiomatization. Specifically, we give examples of
$B$-terms which have the cyclic property and show that there are infinitely
many $B$-terms which do not have the property. Also, we introduce another
interesting property about a canonical representation of $B$-terms that is
useful to detect cycles, or equivalently, to prove the cyclic property, with an
efficient algorithm.
Volume: Volume 16, Issue 2
Published on: June 2, 2020
We present a development of cellular cohomology in homotopy type theory.
Cohomology associates to each space a sequence of abelian groups capturing part
of its structure, and has the advantage over homotopy groups in that these
abelian groups of many common spaces are easier to compute. Cellular cohomology
is a special kind of cohomology designed for cell complexes: these are built in
stages by attaching spheres of progressively higher dimension, and cellular
cohomology defines the groups out of the combinatorial description of how
spheres are attached. Our main result is that for finite cell complexes, a wide
class of cohomology theories (including the ones defined through
Eilenberg-MacLane spaces) can be calculated via cellular cohomology. This
result was formalized in the Agda proof assistant.
Volume: Volume 16, Issue 2
Published on: June 1, 2020